Organized and led by Anders Roddar and Klaus Engstrom, the group came to the Mississippi Delta to be immersed in the \u201cBirthplace of the Blues.\u201d During this particular visit, the group also learned about and experienced more of the Delta region\u2019s various cultural heritage assets, including African American worship practices, civil rights landmarks and soul food.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe try to vary our trips each year. This year\u2019s trip is called \u2018Rock Your Blues\u2019 and we started in Woodstock, New York\u00a0before making our way down here,\u201d said Engstrom. \u201cWe have been in Clarksdale several times before, but this is our first time here for the Juke Joint festival.”<\/span><\/p>\n “The culture here in the Delta is so rich and so real. We love the music, the food, the places, and most of all, the people,” said Roddar. “This time, we wanted to do something that we had not done before, so I said let’s see if we can go to an African American church service. We are so happy that The Delta Center did this for us. The church was so welcoming and the members there embraced us. It felt like coming home.”<\/span><\/p>\n During the week, the group visited the \u201cCast of Blues\u201d exhibit at The Delta Center, Dockery Farms, GRAMMY Museum Mississippi and Po Monkey\u2019s Lounge, the world famous rural juke joint in Merigold. They crossed the Emmett Till Memorial Highway to gather at Robert Johnson\u2019s gravesite at Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Greenwood. The group dined on fried catfish and BBQ at The Senator\u2019s Place and Airport Grocery in Cleveland. And they attended worship service at New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Clarksdale.<\/span><\/p>\n Attending a worship service at New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Clarksdale.<\/p><\/div>\n For many on the trip, this was their first visit to Mississippi. Peggy Sempler-Boccalini now makes her home in the south of France and attends music festivals regularly. For her, Clarksdale’s festival was one of the best she has attended.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe feeling is all about the festival. I\u2019ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “I live in France now, and we have a lot of festivals and they\u2019re very nice, but there\u2019s something different here. The communication, the being together. You speak with everyone. You are friends. It\u2019s just a very nice feeling here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Several of The Delta Center\u2019s experiential learning sites are included on the Top 40 Places to Visit in the Mississippi Delta website. The website was launched recently by GRAMMY Museum Mississippi in partnership with the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area to promote the entire Mississippi Delta as a cultural heritage tourism destination. To learn more, visit http:\/\/msdeltatop40.com\/<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n The mission of The Delta Center is to promote greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history and its significance to the world through education, partnerships and community engagement. The center serves as the management entity of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area and is the home of the National Endowment for the Humanities \u201cMost Southern Place on Earth\u201d workshop and the International Delta Blues Project.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Delta Center for Culture and Learning’s experiential learning component continues to introduce diverse groups of visitors to the vibrant cultural heritage of the 18-county Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":70237,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[412,400,362,1537],"class_list":["post-70234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-delta-center","tag-delta-center-for-culture-and-learning","tag-grammy-museum-mississippi","tag-mississippi-delta-national-heritage-area","tag-top-40-places-to-visit-in-the-mississippi-delta"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70234"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70240,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70234\/revisions\/70240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Attending](\"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/04\/D70_1723.jpg\")
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